Mazoku Within
by N. Reynolds
Summary: [Story Completed] This wasn't intended as a crossover with Slayers. But the story was inspired from the ideas of Mazoku; so it might be a little dark. This is the other extreme from my first fanfic, "Ubiquitous Tears"


I can barely remember the time before our mother joined us. There are a few scattered scenes that remain in my memory and one memory from just before the merging, where each half of me looked on the other half for the last time.

But even though I still ate human food, part of me withered from lack of nourishment. The loss of Happosai cost us dearly. I would have survived, but at some cost to my development; mother would have none of that. So, as far as the rest of our family knows, mother died. Ironic that it was due to daddy defeating his old master and imprisoning him which led to the "death" of his wife.

We still keep in touch, but it is of necessity a long distance relationship.

Mother's death insured my nourishment at an acceptable level, but I was never satiated until after Ranma came. Before that, I'd indulged in a few idle hobbies for my own amusement and pleasure. The equivalent of sweets to a child guaranteed a healthy, but bland diet.

No one, as far as I know, has ever blamed me for behavior of Tatewaki Kuno, or Dr. Ono Tofu. And to be truthful, I didn't have as much control on the final outcome as I probably should have. But then again, I saw no need to control the results, as all the likely outcomes would have pleased me.

The arrival of the Saotomes was a change of diet as if I had gone from poultry dishes, with the occasional fish, to eating steak every day. Some times it would be pot roast or meat loaf, and sometimes it would be sirloin, or Kobe beef; but it was a substantially richer diet than I was accustomed.

When I learned of their imminent arrival, I had more worries than hopes. As much as I treasure Ranma, I didn't, and don't want to marry him. But I more or less put to rest that problem on the day he arrived.

Their arrival did mean I no longer had to use Kuno and Tofu in plans that made Akane's life worse. But as my actions had long since taken on a life of their own, Akane didn't overly benefit from my shift of focus; Rather she benefited by my lack of further actions when Akane fell out of love with Dr. Tofu, for if the Saotomes were not here, I probably would not have been able to allow Akane to slip away from Tofu. At least, not without substituting something new in its place.

Barring the release of Happosai, it was what Mother wanted for me. The return of his other student, and an abused loner who was such a unique find on so many levels. It wasn't just that he bore the confusion and social dysfunction so that Akane no longer had to, but he brought so many other unique dishes to the house.

And no matter how good a cook you become, you'll always want an occasional dish you haven't prepared yourself, crafted by a person with a different style. We had Ryouga showing up at odd intervals providing roast pork in contrast to the Saotome beef; and shortly it was possible to phone up a delivery of Kansai okonomiyaki, or fresh Chinese.

So their arrival was a joy for me and my family, as long as I insured that I was not expected to marry the boy. A few words at the appropriate juncture bound him to Akane.

For a while I worried that he was actually going to walk away, and leave. But the gropings he endured, the betrayal, the insults, and the rudeness we'd expressed towards him finally pushed him to claim before he left that he was more attractive than Akane, so of course she clobbered him.

And then, telling him that the assault with the table was just Akane's way, was pure cruelty. It immediately established that Ranma was the least important member in the house, forced to accept Akane's abuse because that was the way things were. And although he grumbled, he did accept it.

It was a complete dismissal of all his rights of consideration; dismissing his rights as inconsequential. Imagine suggesting to a guest that had been slighted, fondled, betrayed, insulted, and finally assaulted that he should accept it because it was Akane's nature. That was far crueler than anything Akane did to him. It was at that moment Ranma became the Tendo's whipping boy.

I later learned from Genma that after Ranma endured more emotional abuse on the way to school, he finally insulted Akane directly. He called her a macho chick, or some such. It's much more complementary than how I describe her, but then I know her better, and can get away with it, being family.

Genma was, of course, spying on Ranma all day. Likely he was afraid of Ranma leaving for good if he wasn't supervised. He got bored of that quickly enough though, and didn't bother on subsequent days.

But Ranma found school interesting enough, getting into three fights with Tatewaki before the first period ended. Presumably he knew he'd have to attend a class eventually, but for now he had a group of people around his own age to have fun with.

And fun he was obviously having. His anger and frustration never seemed to last very long. In that respects he was a great disappointment. When he found out that Kuno bought pictures of him, he reacted with pride, rather than anger.

And Kuno's advances seemed to provoke disgust, rather than fear or depression. It was anger at being made to feel revulsion that prompted Ranma to lash out at Kuno. I have always been quite adept at identifying the emotional state of others, at least since our merger.

But if he has always been a disappointment in that regard, he has always been a source of contention among others. His pitiful attempts to assert his right to an opinion had to be ruthlessly squashed by Akane, or she might have had to admit to having done something wrong.

Ranma refused to pretend to see Akane the way she wanted to be seen. And so Ranma dredged strong emotion out of Akane, and later all of the other people pretending to be martial artists.

The next to show up was Ryouga. I doubt it was a sexual jealousy that Ranma felt over P-chan sleeping in Akane's bed. As far as I can tell, Ranma's jealousy towards the bastard was due to a dumb animal being treated better than he. P-chan would gnaw on Ranma in front of Akane, and when Ranma had had enough, and struck back, Akane would punish Ranma.

And yet Ryouga continued to feel persecuted by Ranma. What a delight Ryouga was to have around the house. And daddy knew! Ryouga had been snuggling in Akane's bosom, and father did nothing when he found out P-chan was Ryouga. It was the first time I knew for a fact that daddy wasn't merely grieving over the supposed death of his wife, but merely doing the best he could for himself while trapped in a house with three daughters he didn't care about.

Well, it was obvious from the way he treated Ranma that he did care about his daughters, but only in the way he cared about the house, or the furniture. We were an asset.

I sometimes wonder how he felt about mother. It's useless to ask him as he'd just weep, and try to make himself look like the grieving widow. I do know that when mother seemed to die, Daddy felt more than a little relief, and absolutely no guilt about it, so I'm pretty sure his grief is more or less an act. He may even have come to believe his own lies.

I'm uncomfortable discussing this with mother, especially by letter. Part of it is a typical unease in prying into the romantic and sexual lives of my parents. Part of it is the unease she obviously feels about the topic, and part of it is the fear that if I ask her a straight question, she'd answer it.

It would be worse than the "birds and the bees" talk she gave me. I'm pretty sure most mothers' "birds and bees" talks don't have sections on butterflies' metamorphosis, or the habits of preying mantises and black widow spiders eating the male after sex.

Obviously Daddy lived after conceiving us, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that Mommy fed on something daddy had once had.

Well, whatever reasons Mommy had for marrying, mating, and finally leaving Daddy, I can't see him as worthy of respect. So far, he'd be more trouble to remove than to keep him.

I remember when Shampoo first visited our house, looking to kill a female Ranma. Ryouga made it quite clear that Shampoo had never seen Ranma as a male, and that Shampoo was trying to kill Ranma. But after a few words from me, Soun was blaming Ranma for having had a girlfriend before his engagement, as if there were anything wrong with that.

Soun made a perfect cowardly passive-aggressive bully. And he was so easy to manipulate, that it became disconcerting to realize how many puppeteers were simultaneously pulling his strings.

In many ways he was Happosai's perfect disciple, although he lacked the master's skill and childish tantrums. Daddy did have the demon aura attack Happosai used to appear gigantic, and to paralyze his opponents. Daddy had Happosai's tendency to cry when thwarted. And daddy had the self-righteous contempt of everyone whom he wasn't bowing in fear of.

I can only guess that daddy was either incapable of learning to draw female ki, or Happosai refused to teach it because he wasn't willing to share the stolen underwear.

But so much happened before Happosai returned. There were so many times a little nudge would release banquets from Ranma or the others. For example, it was trivial to guarantee all of Ranma's clothes ended up in the wash simultaneously, even though Ranma was used to doing his own laundry for the last decade. And no one thought it odd that Ranma ran out of clean clothes.

And when Ranma tried to get Ryouga out of Akane's bed, it was child's play to annoy all three of them by acting like they were up to something. As if the couple who never kissed before would have engaged in a three-way petting session.

And speaking of kisses, what wonderful depression Ranma emitted when his first kiss was with a guy. And when he almost kissed Akane, I derailed it by inviting the rest of the family to watch.

The memory erasing shampoo and shiatsu attack was a major disappointment. I had such high hopes for it, but it ended so quickly. I didn't have a hand in Daddy telling Ranma that the amnesia didn't matter as long as Akane remembered him. Daddy seems to have a knack for selfish cruelty. But he received his due punishment when Akane pretended not to remember him.

First Tofu found a cure; I had to insure he had a seizure to make him destroy the book. But no one suspected me of arranging it. I disposed of the shredded book, but no one even bothered suggesting reconstructing it, or looking for another copy.

A brief message to Shampoo insured she'd intercept Ranma before he reached the edge of town. I couldn't afford to lose him for weeks, after all. But it was all for naught, as Ranma cured Akane within hours.

When we learned of Ranma's ailurophobia I almost gave myself away. I'd never tasted such a pure, rich fear before. I couldn't help myself, I had to cover him with cats, and keep him on the edge of the abyss. When he actually entered a catlike state, though, his joyous exuberance was actually painful. I couldn't stand letting him sleep it off in my lap. Luckily it's easy to break him out of it; and the anxiety over what he did while under was always enjoyable.

When we discovered that Ranma's hair tie was valuable, perhaps the only valuable possession he had kept his father from stealing, I openly suggested taking it from Ranma by force. And still no one denounced me.

The worst anyone ever accuses me of is being too oblivious. As if that were an excuse for allowing the chaos that goes on to continue. I hear all of the plans the fathers make while they ignore me. I encourage Ranma to persevere and people believe that to be a kindness. And I allow my sister's wrongs to continue, when I'm the only person who could rein them in.

Now Happosai has finally returned. No one questions why I'm nice to him, or why he never glomps me and always treats me with respect. He knows, although he's never told anyone else, that like my mother before me, I could drain him dry, and eat his soul. He knows enough to take my requests seriously, even though I rarely interfere with his fun.

I am the twenty year old matriarch of the Tendo Dojo, and I rule their lives without their awareness. 


End file.
